China’s place in the global order

WHAT will China’s role be in the international order five, 10 or 15 years from now? This is undoubtedly one of the defining questions in global affairs today, because whichever way we attempt an answer — whether we expect Chinese power to grow or to diminish, and how — will say a great deal about our expectations not only for China as a state and society but also for the future of international political, economic and institutional systems. A world in which Chinese power continues to expand and in which Chinese-led international institutions proliferate and take root would be very different from one in which China recedes from the geopolitical limelight or acquiesces to the norms of the existing order. For the foreseeable future, the People’s Republic, for all its constraints, will remain one of the few states credibly challenging the political, economic and military supremacy of the United States, as well as the legitimacy of the US-designed and -led international order. To question China’s trajectory is therefore tantamount to asking whether and in what form the current order will persist.

The fundamental challenge is how best to measure the myriad compulsions and constraints that will dictate China’s evolution over the next decade or so. To do this requires more than merely listing those forces. It demands developing a framework for understanding how they interact and for gauging their relative significance to the core question — where China is headed. Over the coming months, this series will develop such a framework and apply it to a wide variety of issues in China’s political economy, with a goal of both testing and adding nuance to Stratfor’s core expectations for the future of China.